December 19, 2011

Salam kiddos, did you miss me? Don’t worry, mama’s back, bigger and badder than ever. J’apologize for being so lazy but ish got crazy. Ha, I’m a poet and I didn’t even realize it (gold star to whoever gets what show that’s from).

Anywho, just a quick link love before I eventually get back to my weird ramblings. Enjoy!

October 26, 2011

I need to reorganize this blog but seeing how it’s a braindump for me, eh. It’ll live without being organized. But something I realized recently led me to create a new category which I’m hoping will be interesting to readers and if not, oh wells. This new category is “Secret Hijabi Confession”, or the Thoughts That Run Through My Head Anyway But Just More Specific, or This Blog in General But More Specific. You savvy?

So today’s episode of Secret Hijabi Confession is that sometimes, I love sitting next to men on the train. Yes, this is a weird thing to say. But hear me out. Muslims are supposed to be gender separated. Men associate with men, women associate with women, keep that distance between the sexes on purpose. I can ramble on and on about how different cultures have interpreted this into keeping their women at home with no outside contact but blah blah blah, we can cry that river another time (dang, sometimes I’m just so irreverent…oh wells).

Basically, I’ve interpreted this to mean that throughout my daily and never ending commute, if there’s a seat open next to woman and a seat open next to a man, I should pick the seat next to the woman. I will have literally separated myself from the man, see? And many times, I do. And I’m all religiously at peace with myself that I did. Yeah, Islam really pervades all aspects of a Muslim’s life and I suppose it could be seen as neurotic but I’m ok with whatever anyone thinks, what I think is what really matters (yeesh, defensive much?).

But sometimes, I choose sitting next to the man, dun dun dun. Sometimes, it’s because the woman seems snooty (actually, it’s true a lot of the time but religious satisfaction is important, see above), or she has her 18 purses all over the seat and I don’t feel like hassling her and usually, men are conditioned not to mind a request from a woman. They will happily accommodate the woman sitting next to him. But the best part about sitting next to a guy, even the one who hogs more than his seat or spreads his legs too wide or keeps jabbing his elbow into you or whatever is that men are heat generating machines. Even the super skinny hipster dudes. It’s awesome.

I find air conditioning to be intolerably cold. Super duper cold. I’m fine in the winter, really. Summer feels too hot to me. I’m so warm that when I used to go the mosque on weekends to get my religious learning (or Sunday school, whatever, it was on Saturdays and Sundays), when the girls would whine about how cold it was, I’d shrug and say I was fine. Which I had to prove. So they’d touch my hand. Find out that it was burning hot. And they’d pull off my coat (because it was cold inside, heat was off all night), pull up my shirt sleeves and warm their hands on my arms. Weird, but FACT.

Even in high school and college, my gal pals would routine hold hands with me while walking to warm up their own hands. I don’t wear gloves either. I’m just superwarm, I guess. At home, my family routinely comes to me to warm up. This is very weird but getting back to the point, I’m FINE WITH WINTER. But air conditioning, good grief. I feel like I’m in a fridge. At work, my coworkers start laughing whenever they see me because I wear this superwarm puffy fleece jacket we’re provided with for field work.

But no matter how cool it can get at work, it is NOTHING in comparison to the arctic chill of trains and commuter rail. SO DOGGONE COLD. You could leave food on those trains and they wouldn’t spoil. And so, to mitigate the situation, I wear sweaters and blazers during the summer, not winter, and also sit next to men who are natural furnaces. But if you need natural heating in the winter, I’m your girl.

Women being too modest. Hmmm, what would a Muslim chick know about that, anways? Somehow, it all comes back to beliefs. Yes, I believe modesty is important and all that jazz but an even more fundamental tenet of Islam is fulfilling rights. And sometimes, I need to hold other people accountable to make sure they fulfill the rights I have on them. Why should I be so caught up running around making sure things are all dandy for them and not me? Because I’m so nurturingly awesome? Cry me a RIVUH.

The other super thing about being hijabi, in ENGINEERING (God, the lack of women sometimes) is that I can’t blend in. No matter what. Even on the way out, “Oh HijabEng, do you need to use the men’s room?” “Nah, I’m good.” “OMG I’M SO SORRY. I MEANT THE LADIES ROOM. I MEANT THE BATHROOM. I’M SO SORRY.” “WHAAA??? Oooooooooohhhh, HAHA, you said men’s room. No, I’m ok. I don’t need to use ‘the facilities.'”

I did recently have to “speak up” at work and let me tell you, I was TERRIFIED. I almost cried. It was hard, relating what I needed and what wasn’t working for me. But I put on my big girl panties and I’m happy I did it. Things are different now and they would never have been changed if I hadn’t said anything. We all just would have been frustratedconfusedface at each other, and who really needs that? Especially after I finally weighed in after 3 weeks and found out that I gained half a pound and am now 160.X and that is just @#$&%&%^%?????

October 19, 2011

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PROCRASTINATE NOW??????????/ HOW? HOW? HOW? WHY? WHY ARE THE TUBES ON THE INTERNET CLOGGED LIKE THIS???? IS IT BECAUSE IT’S RAINING? BECAUSE WHERE IS MY CORPORETTE???????/

I feel like writing a letter to the NY Times about this. What else are you supposed to do to rail against of the injustice of your favorite website EVER in the history of websites disappearing???????????????? BAH.

I have a feeling that this is finally going to shift me over to tumblr. I miss my internet friends.

October 12, 2011

On a typical day, I bring an banana (yes, I know it’s supposed to be “a” but “an banana” sounds better) and an orange to work. So I have two snacks, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. It’s great, nice sugar rush for 0 points.

But we ran out of oranges at home, so I only had the banana yesterday, so I enjoyed that in the morning with peanut butter. Come afternoon, I was SO VERY HUNGRY. Ravenous. And I couldn’t think, for want of food. I wasn’t actually hungry but my mind knew it was snack time so it was all I could concentrate on. I didn’t want to raid the candy bowl as I’ve been a Fatty McButterpants lately and going downstairs to get food – OMG choices, no thank you. So I raided my closet. And I found an expired granola bar. And let me tell you, it was bliss.

In the course of yesterday’s raid, I found a serving of chocolate pudding. Hiding behind plastic bags or some business (really, I should clean the closet out). I have no idea how long it was there but I was holding on to it for the future. Like today, after I had my lunch, I really wanted sugar but didn’t feel like making tea (w/Splenda, of course, let’s keep the unlimited 0 points rolling over here) so I found that pudding and it was MINE. It was so perfect and delicious and God bless preservatives.

That pudding was meant to be found, I tells ya, cuz I read the expiration date and it said enjoy until October 28, 2011. Which is almost 2 weeks from now. Is that fate or what? I was divinely guided to that pudding. Yummmmmm…..puddddding =). Which, by the way, reminds me of the stoopid “pudding face” ads in train stations. They’re creepy as anything. Huge, gory, stretched out smiles on people’s faces, ugh. No thank you.

I don’t know what I’ll do for a snack this afternoon but I did find oatmeal in my closet a few weeks ago and that’s still there. Maybe I’ll have oatmeal. It’s good to know I’m eating my “emergency” food during non-emergency events. Excellent survival skills.

With all this exciting hunting for food in the office business going on, it’s easy to see why I keep forgetting that I recently was forced to change my password at work. UGH. I ABHOR changing passwords. They’re required by the company every something-or-other days. SO ANNOYING. Every single password cycle, I’m always on the verge of locking myself out of my machine. Stoopid policy. Yes, of course, it makes sense, but it’s SO SUPER ANNOYING.

October 11, 2011

I have decided to be grumpy today and curmudgeon I shall be. Take that, Tuesday!

I woke up early and got to work earlier, which is good, but I forgot my headphones and my coworkers are extra cheerful and noisy today. Sometimes, I just need my quiet time. I feel like telling these young-at-heart whippersnappers to caaaaaaallllllllmmmm doowwwwwnnnn. Sigh.

I “broke up” with a bunch of my internet boyfriends, that’s always fun. I’m also trying to compile 3 months worth of work into 3 weeks because I’ll be traveling in November. People always need me at work and home when there’s even a whisper of me not being there and now that it’s confirmed that I won’t be here, everything. Must. Be. Done. NOW. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Also, some jokers are texting me. Oh online dating, you beast, you. Bah. Sometimes, I just feel like hiding in a cave. With Facebook. Which is just such a contradiction. How else would I stalk peoples?

Also, younger sisters are incredibly, breathtakingly, annoying. So annoying. When I start with my sister, I just can’t stop, I don’t know why. It’s like we’re children. Terrible. And she just pi$$ed me off so royally this morning. I would go get candy or something to make myself feel better except I haven’t weighed in the past two weeks and my tummy is getting uncomfortably large. I gave up Spanx and I refuse to go back to it. I’m banking on my trip whittling me down to size, lots of walking in the blistering heat is planned.

I’m going to go back to glaring at things moodily. Perhaps today is more Teenage-Angst Tuesday. Maybe I’ll go have some juice.

The premise of the movie is that these two best friends have this shared childhood dream of having a June wedding at the Plaza Hotel. As luck would have it, they both get engaged and are accidentally booked to get married at the Plaza in June on the same day. The HORROR. And neither will change their date. So hilarious and vicious pranks ensue. Are most women really that obsessed with their wedding day? Like, you have a dream and YOU MUST FULFILL IT or your whole marriage will collapse if you don’t have the exact shade of lavender plum or whatever bouquet? Is lavender plum even a color? Seriously, WHO CARES? Am I seriously lacking as a person, as a woman, to NOT GIVE A HOOT?

Oddly enough, I was watching this movie with my bff and we laughed and snarked throughout the entire movie but at the end of it, I just had to ask if she has a “dream wedding”. She snorted and said she’d sign the papers and bounce and invited me to be one of her witnesses. That response explains why she’s my bff. I don’t think I’ve ever envisioned my “big day”. I’ve always had trouble thinking about what I’d look like as a bride, what my groom would look like and how the EVENT would happen, so my ideal would just to have everyone over at the mosque and hand out some pizza and call it a day. I do admit to wanting to wear a red sari on my wedding day, which I don’t even have to worry about because my parents have already purchased a red wedding sari for me in the PERFECT RED and some wedding jewelry and people keep giving me red clothes, hoping it’ll impart some GET MARRIED NOW germs on me. Shrug. Me and bff agreed to have a double wedding at a mosque, it’d be so easy, FREE, and plus, it only takes like 5 min for each of us to get married. Maybe we’ll give out cupcakes.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get married but I have to say, the thought of the wedding really stresses me out. To have a gender-separated or mixed wedding, invite coworkers or not, to play music or not (as conservative Muslims consider music to be not permissible due to content and distracting Muslims from the remembrance of God), how to keep my hair covered while wearing head jewelry, how much of my neck and arms am I okay with exposing to display my jewelry, do I wear and turtleneck and boil to death on my wedding day, my parents’ 80 gazillion friends that MUST come as I am the Eldest Child, etc, etc, etc. In my head, I’m all EFF THAT (pardon my French), let’s just have a mosque wedding, keep it simple, issue an open invitation to everyone, Muslim or not, and whoever cares will show up. The End. Mosques are already gender separated, there’s plenty of room and I can score food on the cheap. It’ll suck for my male coworkers (which is like 90% of my coworkers) and friends but OH WELLS. C’est la vie and tough noogies.

As this is a total non-issue due to my perpetual single status, I’m off the hook. For now. But this is something that needs to be discussed with the guy and if he can stand firm with his family, that’ll be awesome. My sister is pushing for me to get married in a castle, eyeroll, and my parents are under the impression that I’m saving all of my money for my magnificient wedding day, double eyeroll. However, I understand that there is now also a new breed of men known as groomzillas, and Lord help me if that’s who I wind up with.